


The Widow

by littlemissmandy3



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Child Death, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, It's a Black Widow origin fic- what do you expect?, Red Room
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-14 06:19:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7157000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemissmandy3/pseuds/littlemissmandy3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha kills for the first time when she is still Natalia, nine years old, the first spots of red drip-drip-dripping their way onto her ledger...<br/>__________________________________________________________________________________________________________<br/>This is honestly just an angst festival, and one of my friends described it as "disturbing, in a good way". Enjoy the products of my apparently slightly twisted brain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I should probably give due warning that this fic is really quite dark. Trigger Warnings for pretty much anything you'd expect from a Red Room based work.

Natasha kills for the first time when she is still Natalia, nine years old, the first spots of red drip-drip-dripping their way onto her ledger. It has not been clean, not since that tiny girl was dragged from her burning house and pulled out into the deadly Russian winter, but those had been smears and smudges earnt from pilfered food, pulled hair, punched guts. Not from the snap of another girl’s neck in her arms. 

  
“Good girl,” The words come with something approaching pride, and her stomach twists in a way that she knows is not just pain from the fight, no matter how much she pretends. Katya is dead. Gentle blonde Katya who dared whisper a few words to her on that first, most terrible night, is dead at her hands. Hot tears threaten to spill over, so she bites down hard on her tongue to make them go away. She is not weak. Katya was weak. And now she is dead.

  
Aware of the cold blue eyes still boring into her chest, Natalia lets the body drop to the floor without looking at it, unable to stop her shudder at the quiet thump it makes as it hits the scuffed wood. “You did well today. You didn’t even hesitate,” Madame tells her in clipped tones, placing a stiff hand on her shoulder, “I knew you were ready”. Natalia gives a slight nod in acknowledgement of the praise.

It is so rare to be offered anything but detached instructions, or pain and punishment. It is rarer indeed to be told that she “did well”, that she is “good”. But she cannot bask in it, cannot relish the fact that she is getting better, becoming stronger, that somebody is pleased with her. Because she cannot shake the knowledge that she has done something bad, bad, bad.

  
“It will get easier from here. Soon it will be as natural to you as breathing,” Advice of this sort is the closest that Madame ever gets to kindness, and even within it lies the warning that Natalia’s weakness is becoming visible. Madame is wrong, of course. It never gets easier. Natalia just gets stronger.


	2. Chapter 2

“That’s enough.”  Natalia allows her eyes to flicker open as far as the swelling will allow, slowly drawing herself back out of the quiet place in her head. Everything hurts. She can taste blood.  “And that, girls, is how it should be done,” Madame addresses the audience of fifth classers. The older girls nod dispassionately, seeming detached from the torture they have witnessed being inflicted on a girl just two years their junior. Indeed, Natalia has seen more reaction provoked by the children’s films that are occasionally used to teach them English. The only true emotion that she can discern is resentment that a girl almost half their height is being used to demonstrate concepts that they should- according to Madame- have grasped years ago.

“You are dismissed.” The words are proceeded by the quiet patter of muted footsteps, and it is only when she hears the heavy wooden doors thud shut that Natalia allows herself to sink back into the chair, eyelids falling shut. Something approaching a whimper forms in her throat as her mauled flesh makes contact with the metal, but she curtails it to a quiet groan. She cannot fail now, not after having endured an entire session without as much as a sob. It’s a record, even for her.

She feels the restraints being loosened by coarse hands and has to resist the urge to flinch away- just minutes ago those same hands were landing blow after sharp blow across her face and torso. Despite this, every strap or cuff that is released relaxes her a little, as she is slowly brought back into control. Of course, she has no illusions that she truly holds any authority; Madame and the instructors dictate her every action- they could have her life ended in a split second if they so wished. But she is fast, her slight frame giving her an advantage in this respect, and strong for her size, and a quick thinker, and sometimes, just for a few moments, she feels powerful.

The moment that her body is free from the constraints of the chair, and that the soldier has exited the room, Madame strides over, “You impress me more and more every day, Natalia. Sometimes it is hard to believe that you’re barely eleven years old.” There is a ‘but’ building in her words, Natalia can feel it, “This is why I push you. You harden under pressure while other girls break. One day you will be a great operative.” Madame pauses, waiting for a response before continuing, so Natalia offers a quiet “thank you”, daring to slide her eyes up to meet the woman’s level gaze. “Will you need to be excused from training this afternoon?” The question is loaded, a challenge hanging in the air. There is a right and a wrong answer, and in her pain-hazed brain Natalia cannot quite work out which is which. To say yes is to show weakness, but to say no could be considered idiocy, a lack of awareness of her current limits. Idiocy is better than weakness. Anything is better than weakness. Natalia is not weak. “No, Madame. Training is important,” She offers, injecting a confident certainty into her voice that she does not feel. The woman raises her carefully shaped eyebrows, “I would have thought that you needed the time to recover- but clearly not. Get a drink and then go and re-join your class,”

It was the wrong answer. It is always the wrong answer. Sometimes, late at night, when Natalia feels less like marble and more like a terrified eleven year old girl, she questions if there is ever a right one. Nevertheless, she has made her choice, and now she must face the consequences. Arranging her features into a practiced mask, Natalia slides down from the chair with careful poise and quietly strides from the room, ignoring her body’s screams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the Russian surnames. They're basically derived from very minimal internet research- if anything's horribly stereotypical or just plain wrong, please let me know!

Six times straight through the chest, and once through the head for good measure. Not a single bullet deviates from the target, despite the fact that she is almost lightheaded from hunger. One of the second classers made an escape attempt three nights ago- one of the many disadvantages of teaching lock picking skills to frightened eight year olds- and none of the girls have eaten since then, as the usual rules dictate. She doesn’t even want to think about what would happen if anyone was ever successful.

With hands that threaten to shake, she places the gun back on the wooden table and turns to give Madame and the strange visitor the expected respectful nod, instead finding them by the doorway, deep in quiet conversation. “How old did you say she was?” The man asks, turning slightly to rake his eyes up and down Natalia’s slight form in a way which makes her skin crawl. “Eleven, sir. She was the youngest we’d ever had in, only just five, but Yeryomin said she was special,” Madame replies, speaking with a careful reverence which Natalia does not recall ever having heard before, and the emphasis placed upon the world ‘special’ makes her want to shudder, “We have girls preparing to graduate who are still nowhere near her level.” The man does not appear particularly impressed, “We’ll see, if you allow me to try something.” Madame nods and the pair turn back towards Natalia, appraising her as she stands in neutral position, careful not to slouch. It is almost instinctive now, but she has taken enough sticks to the shoulder blades to know that she must be absolutely sure.

The man addresses Natalia directly, observing her with quiet curiosity “We’re going to play a little game, Natalia,” he begins, but there must be something in her face as she listens to him that makes him realise that she does not play games, “Think of it as a little test, as it were.” Madame nods encouragingly, giving just the slightest raise of her eyebrows to punctuate the unspoken expectation that Natalia must do whatever this man says, no exceptions. A tiny flutter of apprehension streaks across her chest at what she might be asked to do, but she forces it down. Apprehension is close to fear, and fear is weakness.

The man rifles in his suit pocket, withdrawing a set of keys and showing them to Natalia briefly before returning them. “I’m going to go and stand over by the piano. If you can take these from me without me noticing, without me so much as hearing you approach, then you may be of use to me and the mission. If you cannot, we’ll just have to keep practicing, won’t we?” He takes slow steps over to the piano, nodding in Natalia’s direction and gesturing to the wall opposite. As she walks over, already drawing herself down into that focussed headspace, she finds herself hardly able to supress a smirk. She would likely be capable of killing a man with her hands quite literally tied behind her back. Extracting keys from a pocket without drawing attention to herself? Piss easy, as some of the older girls would say.

Except it’s not. The first time he tells her to restart, she thinks that it’s possible that she messed up, that her footfalls weren’t soft enough, or that she stepped on the creaky floorboard in error. By the fifth time she wonders if he has some kind of sixth sense. By the fifteenth she is wondering if this is some sort of cruel joke, or an unusual punishment. Madam is watching from the doorway with pursed lips, the furrow between her eyebrows deepening every time Natalia fails.

She loses count eventually, frustration building as she battles to keep her cool. She’s not sure if she’s angry at herself for her incompetency, or angry at the man for setting her what is transpiring to be an impossible task, but she has no right to either. Anger is only for those who should be able to expect more, to expect better. Hours, or maybe just minutes, pass before the man finally draws the session to a close with a weary “that’s enough.”

Natalia freezes, bile rising in her throat in anticipation of the punishment. She knows she should be in control, should have full mastery over every single aspect of her traitorous body, but the hunger is making her thoughts fuzzy and her vision was blurry. The man beckons her over and she lowers her head, waiting for the hand to make contact with her cheek. No hand comes. In fact, the man seems to be observing her with something resembling admiration, “Yeryomin was right. She is special.” He comments to Madame, who looks vaguely taken aback. “But she was unable to complete the task as you requested…” She begins, apparently catching herself when she remembers that she is taking to somebody Natalia can only assume to be her superior.

“I did not expect her to succeed. I expected her to lose patience, to give up, maybe even to cry, as any other child would have done,” The man explains, regarding Natalia with a grudging respect. Madame preened slightly at the words, but did not even acknowledge Natalia’s presence, “That’s because Natalia is not any other child. In fact, I would go so far as to say that she is not a child at all, not anymore.”  Natalia wondered vaguely where the ‘not anymore’ comment had come from- she had never been a child at all. The children in the films were so stupid, so weak, so _innocent._ Natalia couldn’t remember what it was like to be innocent. “She will be a great asset to her country someday,” the man said, “I will be in touch regarding the details of the mission.”

Despite initially dismissing her, after the man leaves, Madame drags Natalia from the dining hall by her hair, before she has had a chance to do more than sip at a glass of water, and orders her back into the dance room. “He may not have expected you to succeed, but I did. You embarrassed me today, and showed that your instruction so far has clearly been inadequate. That must be rectified.” It is then that Natalia notices that Trainer Ibragimov is already in position by the piano, almost exactly mimicking the posture of the man from earlier. It is then that she realises that she will not be leaving the room until she gets it right. She does eventually, although not until the early hours of the next morning, when her bare feet are leaving spots of blood on the parquet floor, when her legs can barely support her weight, when it takes all the strength she has to keep her eyes open. Madame always tells her that she is not breakable, but that night she comes pretty damn close. At least she won’t fail next time.


	4. Chapter 4

“Are you ready to go?” The man eyes Natalia appraisingly as she steps out of the bathroom, and she has the inexplicable urge to fold her arms over her chest, to shrink in on herself, to cover every millimetre of exposed flesh. The pale blue dress is not especially revealing, barely exposing her razor-sharp collarbones, and it ghosts just below her knees. It is not even obscenely tight like the ones they have practiced in in training. There’s just something disconcerting about its delicacy; she feel herself besmirching it even as she stands there, her pores oozing every drop of blood she has ever shed.  The crux of it is that something this beautiful does not belong on her, but she supposes that is part of the point. She is not herself tonight, not the marble statue that the Red Room has made her, but a sweet ten year old called Lena: a child at an adult’s party. A child who could kill any one of them without breaking into a sweat.

She realises that the man- whose name has not been divulged for ‘security’ purposes- is expecting a response, and she gives him a curt nod, using the pain of the tight shoe on her recently injured feet to pull her back into the necessary headspace. She is an operative. Her comfort is not of importance. The man unlocks the door and the pair step out into the hotel’s hallway. Natalia drinks the perfumed air in deeply, glad to be free of the tiny room and its stink of smoke and sweat. As they walk down the corridor to the entrance, the man grips her shoulder tightly and speaks lowly into her ear, close enough that she can feel his breath moving on her cheek. “This is a baby mission, just an in and out job. If you fuck this up, there’s no second chances,” He opens his suit jacket slightly to illustrate his point, the bulk of a gun showing at his waistband. Natalia cannot help the prickle of fear that crawls down her spine, but he is wrong if he supposes that he can terrorise her into perfect performance. Perhaps it would have worked when she was little, but she is familiar with guns, comfortable even: not to mention the fact that she could probably take him in a fight. She bobs her head slightly to illustrate understanding before twisting out of his grip just as they approach the hotel’s reception: the harshness of it might attract unwanted attention, and she dislikes the feel of his sweaty palms against her cool skin.

The car is already waiting for them outside, a black limousine with a plush cream interior. It’s like nothing Natalia has seen before, but she dampens down the brief frisson of excitement almost as soon as it emerges. She is here to do a job, not to enjoy herself. Mercifully, the man remains silent for the short journey, and Natalia spends the time mentally mapping the route back to the hotel. It will not do her any good, but it is good practice. She can’t let her training slip just because she’s out on a real mission.

They pull up onto the gravel driveway outside a pale brick built stately home. Its exterior vaguely resembles that of the Red Room- the name that Madam and the guards use for the place where she is trained when they are talking among themselves- but when they enter, it is apparent that the inside could not be more different. The brightness of the place is almost shocking, chandeliers casting pools of light onto the ballroom’s sprung wooden floor. A middle aged woman approaches, embracing the man who is her father for tonight, before stepping back. “Matfey, why didn’t you tell me you were bringing Lena?” The woman reproaches playfully. The man rubs the back of his neck in a show of awkwardness, “I didn’t know until a few hours ago. The damn babysitter cancelled on me,”

The woman huffed and turned her attention to Natalia, adopting a syrupy sweet tone and beginning a stream of inane chatter- complementing the dress and the colour of her hair, asking how old she was, what her favourite subject at school was- which ‘Lena’ replied to in turn, peppered with shy giggles. However, there was one question which caught her totally off-guard. “What do you want to be when you grow up then, sweetie?” That hadn’t been in the file. It wasn’t something that it should have been difficult to make up on the fly, but as she opened her mouth to give a reply, she found herself choking.  She would never be asked that question genuinely. She didn’t get a choice. Despite the fact that the Red Room had given her so much, that was something they had taken from her. If she even lived long enough to ‘grow up’. It was at that moment, under that woman’s concerned gaze, that Natalia first learned that she had no place in the world.


End file.
